G2G: "Massachusetts Bay" v "Massachusetts Bay Colony" or "Province of Massachusetts Bay"

Question

Is there a official style guideline anywhere regarding this?  I think the drop-down menu shows just Massachusetts Bay and confuses people to believe that is the proper term. But since Massachusetts Bay is really just a body of water, my understanding was that to follow the wikitree policy of using historically accurate names, that its preferred to edit it to either Massachusetts Bay Colony or Province of Massachusetts Bay (depending on what's appropriate).

I'd just like something official to refer to in cases where people remove the Colony or Province and change it back to Massachusetts Bay.

Thanks!

Comments

My personal preference is to follow the location menu as much as possible. I see no need to make the choice more difficult than it has to be. Using the location menu enables us to standardize location names across profiles. Standardized usage, in turn, enables us to communicate better, in my opinion anyway.

Ideally, we should create our own location menu, so we can give each location its proper "their convention" name. Until that time (12th of Never?), using the names in the current location menu is, again in my opinion, the better option for a collaborative environment.

That said, don't worry if others disagree with your choice. However, whoever changes any data field should be expected to provide a citation for the document or record on which he/she based the change.

edit: added link to Location Fields help page; noting that, in my opinion of course, style guidelines are generally considered flexible

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I also note a frequent desire to change "Plymouth, Plymouth Colony" to something other which includes "Massachusetts" on profiles prior to 1693. Absolutely incorrect.

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A couple weeks ago, someone changed a location on one of the profiles I manage from "Province of Massachusetts Bay" to just "Massachusetts Bay." I changed it back.

Using the dropdown list names may be the easy way, but there are far too many locations that don't appear on the list (at least for colonial and early 19th century New England, which is where I work—Maine is especially problematical, with multiple changes of town names and shifts in county boundaries). Many of the historical names just are not there. It seems to me that "the better option for a collaborative environment" is to use the correct historical name, as nearly as we can discern it.

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Lindy, I really like having the drop down menu, and I do think it helps standardize the format for lots of place names.  I'll confess when I first learned about making the edits for Colony/Province...I kind of rolled my eyes a bit.  But actually have found it a really helpful way to add some important historical context.

I don't mind if someone just uses what's in the drop down, but it should be acknowledged as an improvement if I add the correct historical name. (In the case that prompted this post, the person was unaware of the policy to use the correct historical name, and was fine to revert back to Province of...once I explained).

I don't know...collaboration is important, but sometimes I see it being treated as the goal, rather than the tool.  We're collaborating...but towards what?

Answer 1

M - I agree with and use your approach -- Massachusetts Bay Colony or Province of Massachusetts Bay (depending on what's appropriate) -- but there is nothing "official" on this beyond the policy of using historically correct place names.

Answer 2

There was recently a long G2G discussion about using the WikiTree defaults at:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/946831/incomplete-location-names?show=947521#c947521

Ellen Smith noted: "...Massachusetts Bay is a body of water. It never was the name of a place on dry ground. There was a legal entity called "Massachusetts Bay Colony" during most of the 17th century. It was succeeded in 1693 by a legal entity called "Province of Massachusetts Bay," parts of which were included in other entities prior to 1693 (and parts of which are not in modern Massachusetts). If we are going to go to the trouble of determining which entity a particular "Massachusetts" place was in at the time of a particular event, we should go to the trouble of providing the full name of the entity, rather than suggesting that our ancestors lived in the water."

Comments

Thanks, Julie.

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Thank you, Julie. The Puritan Great Migration project follows this approach and reverts changes when someone selects "Massachusetts Bay".

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Definitely best answer! Just because there's a drop down item, doesn't mean it's correct, and that menu comes from FamilySearch so WT doesn't have control of its accuracy. If we can just educate our members, that's half the battle.

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Jillaine, would PGM consider putting something directly on the Project page?  

It would be great if the Massachusetts Project also endorsed this.

Answer 3

See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Colonial_American_Place_Names

They have a brilliant Google spreadsheet there that has repeatedly answered most of my question about contemporaneous place names.

Comments

It looks like good information.  Can you provide a link directly to the spreadsheet you've referred to?

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US Historical Place Names (Google Sheet)

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Thank you!

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Thanks, Chip.  Yes, the googlesheet is amazing.  I've used it many times.